TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a lie Friday, raising the stakes against Israel just as world powers try to decide how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of an Iran in political turmoil.

“The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim,” he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel “Qods (Jerusalem) Day” rally.

“Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty.”

Ahmadinejad’s anti-Western comments on the Holocaust have caused international outcry and isolated Iran, which is at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear program.

The hardline president warned leaders of Western-allied Arab and Muslim countries about dealing with Israel.

“This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it … This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end,” he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.

“…..The ferocity and extraordinary resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe cannot simply be attributed exclusively to the impact of Muslim migrants or rage against Israeli policies. The anti-Israel tsunami which swept across Europe can only be appreciated in the context of the profound traditional hatred of Jews which, we now realize, only went into remission when the horrors of the Holocaust were unveiled. But half a century later it has reemerged with a vengeance, with the Jewish nation state acting as surrogate for anti-Semitism directed against Jews.

How else can one explain why this tiny embattled Jewish state has assumed the role of scapegoat for all the ills of humanity. It is reminiscent of the times when Jews were accused of poisoning the wells, spreading the plague and acting as the sinister force behind capitalism and communism? How else to explain why Israel has been condemned as a rogue state representing a greater threat to peace than North Korea or Iran? How else to explain the application of Holocaust inversion to its treatment of the Palestinians while silence prevails concerning human rights violations and mass murders in countries like Sudan, Sri Lanka or Congo? How else to explain why its legitimate efforts to defend its citizens against terrorists and missiles are blamed for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and global terrorism?…” Continue reading →

OTTAWA — Canadians must take sides and speak out against anti-Semitism brewing within the country in order to commemorate the Holocaust to ensure it is never repeated, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a ceremony for the annual Holocaust remembrance day, Kenney and MPs from all four parties of the House of Commons each praised survivors of the Holocaust and denounced those who try to deny the events of the past or promote hatred toward the Jewish people. Kenney said silence is never an option in the face of anti-Semitism.

“So when the ancient and pernicious hatred for the Jewish people is manifested in our own day and even in our own country, we must take sides. We must speak out. We must not be neutral,” Kenney said, drawing applause from several hundred people gathered at a hall in the Canadian War Museum, near downtown Ottawa.

“We must refuse to tolerate the use and abuse and international forums and even academic institutions to make a scapegoat of the Jewish homeland. We must withdraw public support from those who promote hatred or who defend terror.” Continue reading →

BERLIN (JTA) — More than 14 percent of German teenagers in a recent survey said Jews must have deserved to be persecuted in the Holocaust.

The survey, which was conducted by the Hanover-based Criminal Research Institute, polled 44,610 German students and was called “Youth as Victims and Perpetrators of Violence,” also found that about one in every 20 German teenage boys belongs to a far-right group. The survey found that far more German boys aged 15 belong to extremists groups than to mainstream political youth clubs. In some towns or cities, membership in far-right groups is as high as 10 percent, while in others it is virtually non-existent.

Among boys of German background, 7 percent in former East German states showed clear signs of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, as opposed to 3 percent in western states. The institute’s director, Christian Pfeiffer suggested this might be due to the decades of anti-Israel propaganda promoted in the former Communist East Germany.

In all questions related to far-right identification and anti-Semitism, “boys are far above the girls,” Pfeiffer noted, adding that in general, the survey also found that girls who joined far-right groups usually were following a boyfriend.

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the survey made clear that more funding is needed for youth sports clubs in trouble spots around the country.

Juliane Wetzel, an expert on educational programs at the Berlin-based Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, said, “It is important to get to these youngsters who feel there is nothing else out there for them.”

Auschwitz is the name of a type of beer or a religious festival, some British schoolchildren believe, according to the results of a survey published in London’s Telegraph on Monday.

In this Jan. 17, 2005 file photo, a visitor walks along barracks in the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Photo: AP

A survey of more than 1,000 secondary school pupils ages 11-16 revealed that a quarter did not know the purpose of the Nazi death camp.

Of those, some 10 percent were not sure what it was, 10% believed it was a country bordering Germany, 2% thought it was a beer, 2% said it was a religious festival and 1% believed it was a type of bread. Continue reading →